586 MORPHOLOGICAL METHOD AND KECENT PROGRESS IN ZOOLOGY. 



Sufficient this concernino- the work in nuuunialoyy of the American 

 paleontologists. Whih' wo return them our devout and learned admi- 

 ration, we would point out that the l)rilliance of their discoveries has 

 but beclouded the recognition of equally" important investigations 

 going on elsewhere. In Argentina there have proceeded, side b}" side 

 with the Nortli American explorations, researches into the Pleistocene 

 or Pampa fauna, which in result are not one whit behind, as has l)een 

 proved by the recognition of a whole order of primitive ungulates, 

 the Toxodontia, ])y that of toothed cetaceans with elongated nasals, as 

 in the genera Prosqualodon and Argyrocetus^ and of sperm whales with 

 functional premaxillary teeth, viz, PJujsodon and IhjixK-diix^ to say 

 nothing of giant armadillos and pigmy gl3"ptodons. 



It will l>e remembered hy some present that from Patagonian deposits 

 of supposed Cretaceous age there was exhibited at our Dover meeting 

 the skull of a horned chelonian Melolmvla^ which animal, we were 

 informed, is barely distinguishable from the species originally dis- 

 covered in Cooks Island, one of the Society group, and which, being 

 a marsh turtle highly specialized, would seem in all probabilit}' to 

 furnish a forcible defense for the theory of the Antarctic continent. 

 But more than this the results of renewed investigation of the Argen- 

 tine beds by the members of the Princeton University of North 

 America have recently resulted in collections which, we are informed, 

 seem likely to surpass ail precedent in their bearings upon oui- current 

 ideas, not the least remarkable preliminary announcement being the 

 statement that there occurs fossil a mole indistinguishal)le, so far as is 

 known, from the golden mole {Glvnj meld oris) of South Africa. 



Before I dismiss this fascinating subject let me disarm the notion, 

 which may have arisen, that the paleontological work of the Old 

 World is done. Far from it! Even our American cousins have to 

 come to us for important fossil forms as, for example, the genus 

 PHoJii/rax of Samos and the Egyptian desert, while among the rodents 

 and smaller carnivores there are large collections in our national 

 nuiseum waiting to be worked over afresh. 



If one part of the globt^ more than another is just now the c(Miter of 

 interest concerning its vertel)rate remains, it is th(> Egyptian desert. 

 Here there have recently l)een found the l)ones of a huge cetacean 

 associated, as in South America, with those of a giant snake, one of 

 the longest known, since it nuist have reached a length of 30 feet. 

 There also occur the remains of other snakes, of chelonians of remark- 

 able adaptive t3qje, of crocodilians, lishes, and other animals. Interest, 

 however, is greatest concerning the Mammalia, which for novelty are 

 quite np to the American standard, as with an upper and a lower jaw 

 of an anomalous creature, concerning which we can oidy at present 

 remai'k that it may be a marsupial, or more pro])ably a carnivore, 

 which has talaui on tlie rodent type in a manner peculiarly its own. 



